Differential expression of estrogen receptor α and β transcripts in tissues and in primary culture cells from pubertal gynecomastia.

BACKGROUND: Pubertal gynecomastia is a common problem occurring in up to 65% of adolescent boys. Gynecomastia comes at a time when self-image awareness is at its greatest and psychologically could be a psychologically disabling condition. Surgery is considered the mainstay of treatment for severe or persistent cases. A medical management aimed at altering the effective androgen/estrogen ratio has been suggested with inconstant results. Some promising results have been obtained by using anti-estrogens. Surprisingly there are no data on the estrogen receptor (ER) α and β RNA expression in gynecomastia. AIM: We studied ER RNA subtypes in pubertal gynecomastia. METHODS: ERα and β RNA were determined by real time RT-PCR in 50 mammary samples from pubertal boys with idiopathic gynecomastia subjected to reductive mammoplasty. To study ERα and β pattern of expression, epithelial and stromal primary cell cultures were set up from fresh tissues. RESULTS: These analyses indicated that in all stromal cells ERβ was expressed at higher level than ERα and in epithelial cells both ERα and ERβ were barely detectable. CONCLUSIONS: Our data suggest that also stromal cells are involved in the pathophysiology of pubertal gynecomastia. The high level of expression of ERβ seen in pubertal gynecomastia adds new insight on validation of ERβ as a target for candidate diseases and exploration of ERβ as a marker for clinical decision-making and treatment in pubertal gynecomastia. This could drive to search for new and selective anti-estrogen drugs for medical treatment of pubertal gynecomastia with a particular attention to the ERβ-selective ligand.